Future of Solutions Engineering in Indian startups.

I’m working at an Indian startup that raised their series B recently... I’ve been here long enough to wear multiple hats and currently doing Solutions consulting(fancy way of pre sales) Now as the company is getting out of early stage, it looks like now they want more specialists. So I’ve been asked if I’d want to continue doing solutions engineering or switch to being a manager in CX(onboarding, support or success)….cant become a manager in SE as there are very limited no of folks here. I’d want to know if folks here have some guidance on when should one look to switch the path from an IC to a Manager career ladder. Some additional info: 1. Personally I feel I should top out my compensation range as an IC before taking a manager role as my assumption is managers don’t get paid highly in India (let me know if that’s not the case) 2. I’ve more than 7 years of professional experience 3. Fairly good with people and would like to go the manager route someday but I feel if I switch now it might hamper my long term earning potential. Is this thinking right? Would appreciate any help that folks can provide to be able to make this decision. Or any guidance on how to think about this as well(if I’m being shortsighted). TIA!

I know Grapevine is full of young and ambitious people that either planning to get into Product or are already working as a PM. I don’t aim to discourage any of you. Moreover, if you need tips to break into Product I would be happy to help you. I personally feel that knowing what you are doing is going to doom is better than normalizing it. So I will convey my experience in simple words, how I hated every single day of it, why did I still stick around for 4 years, why product decisions are random political bullshit, why you should not let anything that happens get under your skin and affect your morale. Finally, few words for sociopathic Head of Products. Lesson #1: Go through all stages of grief at once. Accept that product culture is broken and accept that it will not get better. Finally, you can’t fix it or improve it. Lesson #2: Ratings are political bullshit. I can tell you the years I was rated worse I was probably working harder and better at my job. It just depends on the results you get in the last month before ratings and whether your DOP is vocal for you. Lesson #3: Last piece of advice: do not let your Product years lower your self esteem or sense of self worth. Also, some words for sociopathic Head of Products. F’ you.

Recently I got intern+FTE (40k+12lpa) in a startup as data analyst. I would like to know the future prospects in the data field. I like to do coding or be on technical side. Or do I try to shift in SDE role ASAP.

Hey everyone, excited to be doing this AMA! A brief about me, I work currently as a Director of Product at an Indian unicorn startup About my career: - Did my undergrad from IIT and then masters from an Ivy league school - Have been in product for almost 10 years now - across 2 Indian unicorn startups and a publicly listed company Would love to take questions on what it means to be a PM, growing within the role, building your career, and other things :) Will be back here at 4 pm and start replying Shoot away!

I have 1.5 YoE as a frontend developer in an early stage startup. I need help with deciding where do I go from here? Do I deep dive into frontend? Do I try to move to full stack? Things to consider: - I am from a non CS background - frontend in India seems to be a bit saturated, especially for entry/mid level roles. I'd appreciate your advice, thanks :)

Been working with a pre series A level startup for about 3 years being my first job. Paid about 20-25lpa for a full stack role. Engineering + product team is still single digit strength as we are not pureplay tech company. Had a great learning because of a good manager and 0-1 kind of work we did but I am starting to feel stagnated because of following reasons 1. We don't have anything like SDE1, 2 etc because there are very few devs. 1 manager and everyone else is an SDE. The company doesn't intend to hire more for at least an year.. so i won't see any title level promotion or any role that feels senior despite being around for a while 2. Salary. Want to know if I am behind the standard pay because i belong to tier 1.5ish college. Big tech seems to pay more for 3yrs workex as usually people become sde2 by then

My Profile Years of Exp. - ( 1.5 Years MNC + 2.3 Years In a Small Startup) Current CTC - 22 LPA I am working as a SDE 2 in this startup and have been a founding engineer for the company. I have built several products from scratch with complete ownership. I have experience in Java, Spring Boot, Postgres, MongoDB, etc. My concern is that i have worked on logic heavy applications but never on big scale since the applications i have built are enterprise focussed. Most of the good startups / MNCs require experience in working with Dist. Systems, scale,etc. My ask is what should i expect in terms of salary in the current market. Is 36 Base achievable ?

Hey folks, 2023 graduate here; been working in a startup for around 1.5 years now (including 6 months full time internship) At the moment, I am currently looking for something challenging to solve and be a part of small early stage startup. Is someone here aware of any reputed early stage startup (team with enthusiastic folks and pays well) hiring for SDE full time roles. Thanks!

My friend (who is SDE-I in a startup) and I were having a discussion and we both felt that software engineering is probably not the best career for us. So I want to ask, what other career options would you suggest for people like me, who have done graduation in CSE and stuck in this software role?

I did my graduation in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi Technological University. Worked my ass off during covid lockdown to grab a Software developer job. Number of hours spent on DSA and development for straight 3 years. I was able to grab a decent package being from mechanical background. Currently i am working in Accenture as a software developer -> Java full stack developer + Angular (12LPA ctc, 9 Base) I want to work in a product based company which has better opportunities for me because i feel there is very limited opportunities in accenture and somehow people do not encourage to go for them at all. I need guidance on which companies should i be looking for great opportunities, great tech stack, with good management. Salary is never a obstacle for me. I am just looking for growth at this point of time in my career. Currently i am back to DSA again for interview preps. Referrals are also well appreciated.